Is it a blip or a new trend? Rugby union's summer of shame seems to be giving way to the autumn of plain speaking.

First there was Tom Williams's eye-watering testimony to the European Rugby Cup appeal tribunal. Then there was Nick Kennedy, discussing that Twickenham head-butt by the Harlequins lock George Robson, blithely informing a live radio audience that the guilty party was "not the sharpest in the box". James Simpson-Daniel, fresh from his opening two-try salvo of the season, described Gloucester's new coach, Bryan Redpath, as a breath of fresh air compared to the autocratic and departed Dean Ryan.

It was the same at Stockport, where Kingsley Jones and Richard Cockerill pulled few punches about their team's fortunes on the first night of the season. Cockerill reckoned the referees were not as "up to speed" as the players in terms of breakdown interpretation; Jones freely confessed to being a bag of nerves in the latter stages. "With a minute to go I was wondering why I do this job," the Sale director of rugby said.

There are exceptions, clearly. Unlike his predecessor Eddie O'Sullivan, who has just published a spiky autobiography, the champion Irish coach Declan Kidney measures his words by the ounce. There will always be some players – step forward Louis Deacon of Leicester and one or two fringe New Zealanders – who would give a Trappist monk a head start when faced with a notebook or digital recorder. Even today I cringe at the memory of a phone interview I conducted in the 80s with Geoff Miller, who is now England's national cricket selector. Derbyshire's finest living off-spinner had just relocated to Essex and didn't sound too happy. Where are you staying? "I'm living in digs in Braintree." Are the pitches turning? "Pigs might fly." Er, right. Thanks very much for your time.

Post-Bloodgate, though, a number of factors seem to have collided. One is frustration at seeing rugby's reputation so comprehensively trashed – Ben Kay, Delon Armitage and Joe Worsley, to name just three England players, have either directed harsh words at Quins or recommended they be expelled from the Heineken Cup. With the Rugby Football Union's task force offering anonymity to would-be whistle-blowers, there appears to be a collective desire to get things off one's barrel chest. Wasps are even inviting reporters to come and view parts of their training sessions, which have generally been closed in the past. Transparency is the new black.

It may not last. A couple of defeats tend to make even the most talkative director of rugby clam up. Too many clubs, with 35 or more professionals on their books, still find it acceptable to dictate that only two or three can talk to the media before a big weekend game. Neither is Martin Johnson a big fan of his England squad spilling their innermost thoughts across the national prints before or after Test matches. It could be a while before Steve Borthwick graces the pages of Hello!

But let's live in hope. The Lions tour, in many ways, was a throwback to a less suspicious age when players and journalists mingled and mutual trust was established. Maybe that sense of freedom has filtered back to the northern hemisphere. There is nothing duller, in the end, than individuals feeling too stifled to express an opinion. Could it be the penny has dropped among players, that they realise there is nothing remotely marketable about average performers who deal only in monosyllables? Or is it simply a manifestation of the Big Brother and X Factor era, in which everyone has a right to be heard?

Either way, it is good news for fans and journalists. This confessional mood can be contagious. Me? I've always hated salt and vinegar crisps and the music of Supertramp makes me vomit. There, that feels better already.

The PRA should put the following pledge into its mission statement: "Say it loud, say it proud, I shall speak nothing but the truth from now on."

Show and tell

Premiership coaches who whinge at the referee will have to tread more carefully this season. For the first time, RFU staff are reviewing match videos accompanied by a recording of the referee's words rather than those of a television commentator. It will be easier, therefore, to judge whether a referee has got a decision right, has given the offending side fair warning or has been duped by the exhortations of players around him.

Bloody funny

Wags of the week: the Wasps fans who showed up at Twickenham last Saturday for the match against Harlequins with fake blood dripping from their mouths and their pockets full of joke-shop capsules.